20 Years Ago Today, A Flurry Of Excitement In S. Florida

South Floridians have always thumbed their noses at Old Man Winter, taking a perverse pleasure in stories of beleaguered Midwesterners digging out from the latest blizzard.

But 20 years ago today, Old Man Winter took his revenge. The impossible happened.

It snowed in South Florida.

On Jan. 19, 1977, an arctic blast hit the region that makes this weekend's cold snap seem balmy by comparison. While area residents shivered under temperatures more frigid than in Anchorage, Alaska, snowflakes fell on Broward, Palm Beach and Dade counties for the only time since weather records were first kept in 1890.

Never before had snow been seen south of Fort Pierce on Florida's Atlantic coast.

"We saw it approaching from the northwest on our radar, and we knew it was snow because of its fuzzy appearance," said Paul Hebert, the meteorologist in charge of the National Weather Service's Miami office. "We haven't even been close [to getting snow) since. This may have been a once-in-a-century event."

It was hardly a blizzard - just intermittent flurries that peppered the area for only a few hours and none of them stuck to the ground. But for many South Florida residents who had never seen the frozen stuff, the snow and accompanying wind chill made an unforgettable impression.

"I can still remember, it was about 11 o'clock in the morning when we saw little flurries coming down, and it was very, very cold," said Dick McCall, co-owner of McCall Nursery and Landscaping in Davie. "I won't repeat what I said then."

McCall and other growers suffered millions of dollars in losses from the cold wave, which dropped temperatures to a crop-killing 26 degrees, the lowest ever recorded in Broward County. Whipping winds made it feel about 15 degrees colder. But the growers' loss was other merchants' gain.

Department stores reported an unprecedented run on electric blankets and space heaters. Dusty containers of antifreeze were cleared from automotive store shelves. And liquor stores noted brisk sales as customers sought inner protection from the cold. Florida Power & Light Co. workers battled outages for several days, with 35 transformers blowing out in a single night as heaters ran nonstop. In an effort to conserve precious kilowatts, Broward officials temporarily closed most county buildings at the request of the utility.

The flurries created bedlam among schoolchildren, who were so excited that many teachers dismissed classes that Wednesday to let students go outside and experience the event firsthand.

Craig Gero, then a senior at West Palm Beach's Forest Hill High School, said at first he doubted the little white flakes were really snow.

"I thought it must be something else because it just doesn't snow in West Palm Beach, Fla.," Gero said. "It was too shocking to think it could really happen here."

Fort Lauderdale native Loriann Hillebrand Worrell was a senior at the University of Florida when the cold wave hit. A photo of her doodling on a snow-dusted car in Gainesville appeared in newspapers throughout the Southeast, including the Fort Lauderdale News.

Like Gero and millions of other Floridians, it was the first time Worrell had ever seen snow. She says it was fun that it happened, but once every century is about right.

"My husband went on to get his master's [degree) at the University of Denver, so I saw quite a bit more of it then," Worrell said. "Now, I like the unusualness of it once in a while. But I think I prefer it a little warmer than that."